All Poems
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Conscience And Remorse
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
"GOOD-BYE," I said to my conscience
"Good-bye for aye and aye,"
Andrew Marvell
© Charles Harpur
Spirit, that lookest from the starry fold
Of truths white flock, next to thy Milton there
An Elective Course
© Thomas Bailey Aldrich
LINES FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF A HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE
The bloom that lies on Fanny's cheek
Ballade Of Cleopatra's Needle
© Andrew Lang
Prince, the stone's shade on your divan
Falls; it is longer than ye wist:
It preaches, as Time's gnomon can,
This monument in London mist!
Granny
© Ada Cambridge
Here, in her elbow chair, she sits
A soul alert, alive,
A poor old body shrunk and bent-
The queen-bee of the hive.
A Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday
© André Marie de Chénier
Quoi! tandis que partout, ou sincères ou feintes,
Des lâches, des pervers, les larmes et les plaintes
Consacrent leur Marat parmi les immortels,
Et que, prêtre orgueilleux de cette idole vile,
Des fanges du Parnasse un impudent reptile
Vomit un hymne infâme au pied de ses autels.
Masnawi
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.
God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
The Son
© Jones Very
Father, I wait thy word. The sun doth stand
Beneath the mingling line of night and day,
Obituary
© Allen Tate
... so what the lame four-poster gathered here
Between the lips of stale and seasoned sheets
Startles a memory sunlit upon the wall
(Motors and urchins contest the city streets)
In The Days Of Crinoline
© Thomas Hardy
A plain tilt-bonnet on her head
She took the path across the leaze.
- Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said,
'Too dowdy that, for coquetries,
So I can hoe at ease.'
The Passion Of Love's Power.
© Robert Crawford
Touch me, from out your breast of love,
With such white hands that be
As beautiful as a dream of
Your lips' virginity;
Wishes
© Sara Teasdale
I wish for such a lot of things
That never will come true
And yet I want them all so much
I think they might, don't you?
A Lancashire Doxology
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
"PRAISE God from whom all blessings flow."
Praise Him who sendeth joy and woe.
De Nuit, La Nymphe Errante
© André Marie de Chénier
De nuit, la nymphe errante à travers le bois sombre
Aperçoit le satyre; et, le fuyant dans l'ombre,
De loin, d'un cri perfide, elle va l'appelant.
Le pied-de-chèvre accourt, sur sa trace volant,
Et dans une eau stagnante, à ses pas opposée,
Tombe, et sa plainte amère excite leur risée.
The Night Ride
© Kenneth Slessor
Gas flaring on the yellow platform; voices running up and down;
Milk-tins in cold dented silver; half-awake I stare,
Cinderella
© Sylvia Plath
The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span
Limerick: There was a Young Lady of Ryde
© Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady of Ryde,
Whose shoe-strings were seldom untied.
She purchased some clogs,
And some small spotted dogs,
And frequently walked about Ryde
Farewell To The Muse
© George Gordon Byron
Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.
